Early the next morning, Sampson and I met at Stamford, the high school that Tori Glover and Marion Cardinal had attended. The murdered girls were seventeen and fourteen years old.

The memory of the homicide scene had left me with a queasy, sick feeling that wouldn’t go away. I kept thinking, Christine is right. Get out of this, do something else. It’s time.

The principal at Stamford was a small, frail-looking, red-haired woman named Robin Schwartz. Her resource officer, Nathan Kemp, had gotten together some students who knew the victims, and had set aside a couple of classrooms for Sampson, Jerome Thurman, and me to use for interviews. Jerome would work in one room, Sampson and I in the other.

Summer school was still in session, and Stamford was busy as a mall on a Saturday. We passed the cafeteria on the way to the classrooms, and it was packed, even at ten-thirty. No empty seats anywhere. The room reeked of French fries, the same greasy smell that had been in the girl’s apartment.

A few kids were making noise, but they were mostly well behaved. The music of Wu Tang and Jodeci leaked from earphones. The school seemed to be well run and orderly. Between classes a few boys and girls embraced tenderly, with loosely locked pinkies and the gentlest brushes of cheeks.

“These were not bad girls,” Nathan Kemp told us as we walked. “I think you’ll hear that from the other students. Tori dropped out last semester, but her homelife was the main reason. Marion was an honor student at Stamford. I’m telling you, guys, these were not bad girls.”

Sampson, Thurman, and I spent the rest of the afternoon with the kids. We learned that Tori and Marion were popular, all right. They were loyal to their friends, funny, usually fun to be around. Marion was described as “blazing,” which meant she was great. Tori was “buggin’ sometimes,” which meant she could be a little crazy. Most of the kids hadn’t known that the girls were tricking in Petworth, but Tori Glover was said to always have money.

One particular interview would stick in my mind for a while. Evita Cardinal was a senior at Stamford, and also a cousin of Marion’s. She wore white athletic pants and a purple stretchy top. Her black-rimmed, yellow-tinted sunglasses were propped on top of her head.

She started to cry her eyes out as soon as she sat down across the desk from me.

“I’m real sorry about Marion,” I said, and I was. “We just want to catch whoever did this terrible thing. Detective Sampson and I both live nearby in Southeast. My kids go to the Sojourner Truth School.”